Gwen Stacy the Snow White Witch
by mynameisthedoctor
Summary: Spider-Gwen gets sent back in time and just when she begins to adjust to her new surroundings she gets arrested on charges of witchcraft. This story is inspired by the book The Witch of Blackbird Pond. More details in the introduction chapter. Rated T for now.
1. Introduction

I think I have a Story inside me. I don't think I have any talent for writing though. It's mostly just something I fantasize about but I'm too afraid to share. My ideas are also mostly pretty niche. (I think I'll post my fic ideas in the crossover section.)

I think ever since I read The Witch of Blackbird Pond for high school I had this recurring fantasy. It was one of the assigned books I actually liked and I always had a fascination with witch trials and the illogic and unfairness of them.

My fantasy is a fish out of water story of a medium powered hero or villain gets sent back in time to either the Salem witch trials or Europe during the witch hunting mania between the 15 and 16 hundreds. Bonus points if it's a woman.

They hide their powers and try to keep their head down but occasionally help people with things like medicine from their more enlightened era and stuff like that. Sometimes they put a mask on and use their powers to do their usual superheroing. They make friends and build a quiet life until one day the witch hunters knock on their door.

My fantasy branches off into different scenarios here depending on my mood if I chose a Hero or Villain.

The villainous character starts cracking skulls, a cathartic scene of paying evil unto evil damn the consequences. Pretty much end of story.

The Hero plays dumb and hides their powers because they don't really want to hurt anyone, not even the witchhunters. But saying "Yes I have superpowers but no they don't come from Satan." isn't going to fly with the stupidly superstitious and/or charlatan witchhunter who is killing for money. So they play along until either they can come up with an idea to prove their innocence of any crime or until the judge passes sentence whatever it may be, and in the worst case scenarios like torture or death they just use their powers to break free.

Another bonus for drama if a normal female friend they made in this era is also on trial. Maybe they don't know their friend has powers. Maybe the friend will think the super person is a witch. Maybe the main character will have to give up some original plan and use their powers to save their friend.

Most of the time this story was about Spider-man because he's strong but not invincible so he would still have to earn his happy ending. He's principled to the point of being nearly incorruptible so I root for him the most in this situation. It would also be easier to believe the Spider-powered person would be treated with fear and suspicion in that community.

Venom is a good villain character as a lead because he would troll the religious minded antagonists of the story by using the symbiote to pretend he's being possessed. I kinda stopped imagining him in the roll lately because the Castlevania tv series did a scene that was exactly like my Venom scenario where a demon kills a priest villain in the way that was just too perfect for my fantasies to ever compete with. Come to think of it that flashback scene where Dracula's wife gets arrested also play out a lot like my ideas...

But recently I fell in love with the idea of Spider-Gwen in the roll. A girl character in this situation would have an even more fish out of water experience with the pressures on women in this type of society, and 80 percent of witch trials were women.

Also Olivia Octavious is regularly the lead now too.

So I think I've finally decided to bite the bullet and write the story that has been on my mind most of my life. Maybe it will be awful, I don't know. Please leave reviews with ideas and suggestions on how I can improve my writing.


	2. Grimm

The horses pulling their cart were starting to get tired. It was a long trip from Stockler to Edenorth and they left their old cottage early in the morning in hopes they would reach their new one before it got too dark. They decided to move right away while it was still summer and the daylight hours were still long. They had packed as much of their goods for trading as they could into their moving carriage with their personal belongings. Rudolff was relieved to be finally getting close to their new home. Allegedly they had a merchant's guild there and Katherine should be experienced enough to get into a merchant's guild even in these troubled economic times. There were still women in guilds but the number of them accepted as members officially were getting smaller and smaller by the decade. Not to mention the other prejudices they could potentially face. Rudolff might still be turned away for being Jewish and Katherine was once accused of witchcraft.

Rudolff glanced at his wife nodding off in the seat beside him, the fingers in in her left hand in splints from her injuries caused by the torturer's thumbscrews. His heart ached. It was a close call but luckily they made friends with a passionate Catholic missionary with principles of religious tolerance. Father Karl got to know his family the summer before and just happened to be passing through Stockler again when he heard about poor Katherine. He knew Rudolph's family didn't even practice minor folk magic and he also knew a thing or two about moving a court.

Still not all of their neighbors in Stockler were convinced. It was only a matter of time before someone feeling resentful of the trial's outcome would make a new accusation. But they were not tied to the land so the couple decided it was time for a fresh start. Hopefully the Hanseatic League still having a foothold the this place was true or they would be out of luck. Rudolff didn't want his family to stay in Stockler and risk encountering the likes of Balthesar von Dernbach again, but he also didn't want his family to become serfs. Taxes are higher in Edenorth but the locals and it's Prince are uncharacteristically tolerant in this day and age like Father Karl. There are even rumors that in this part of the country the peasants still openly practice folk magic.

These were superstitious times and Rudolff was no different. He liked fairy tales and Edenorth's picturesque forest inspired many stories. There was one about an angel falling from heaven like a shooting star into the surrounding forest and now protecting the children who get lost in it. The villagers are said to even believe that Snow White is a real person and that she is actually still sleeping in her glass coffin waiting for someone to wake her up.

A sound like a loud crack of thunder impossibly close suddenly made everything in his body jolt. He and his wife were suddenly wide awake and he screaming as the spooked horses bolted in fright. They didn't get far off the path before the horses slowed down. It would have been much worse if the horses weren't already tired from an entire day pulling the carriage.

Rudolff looked at the sky. Not a single fat cloud. What was that? Was an imp or evil spirit playing a trick on them? Maybe this place wasn't as safe as it seemed.

They would need to rest the horses first thing when they arrive because now they had to hurry. The sky was starting to get dark and soon they would need to worry about wolves and staying on the path. The horses strayed off the road but it should be easy to find again.

Rudolf looked at the sky again scanning for clues but got nothing. Just a lone cloud oddly stringy like a line drawn on the sky. Katherine noticed it too and remarked that she hadn't seen a cloud like it before but neither of them thought much of it. After all how often does a cloud ever look like one you seen before?

And then they found princess Snow White in her glass coffin.

Author's note: Wow. WOW. I am really bad at this. Still I will not be ashamed. Sometimes shyness is the cowards form of vanity and I am not vain. Please leave suggestions in the comments on how I can improve my writing and what I should call the first chapter. Hell leave ideas for what I could put in future chapters. I already have some ideas of my own but I'm curious to hear what people would like to see with this setup. Snow White is actually Gwen btw as if that's not obvious. She's in a sci-fi hypersleep pod.


	3. Sleepy

Gwendolyn Stacy awoke on a strange lidded bed in a wooden cabin with only a few candles for light. Consciousness rushed into her all at once and she sat ramrod straight in her bed. "Mutter Gottes!" She heard from a person in the room with her and snapped her head to her right to see a strangely dressed man looking like he just seen a ghost. She wanted to ask where she was but suddenly her stomach lurched and she couldn't speak. She shut her eyes hard against the sudden nausea and tried in vain to hold her food but failed and vomited right on the shoes of the man right next to her bed. He suddenly dropped a book he was holding and bolted for the exit. Gwen suddenly noticed she had a huge headache. After a few seconds passed wincing at the pain in her head and stomach her brain caught up with her current situation. " Oh my god… Was I roofied?"Unexpectedly someone answered.

"Flunitrazepam and other toxins undetected." She jumped a little because she still couldn't see anyone but still couldn't sense any danger. Sense danger? Yes that sounds right. She tried to relax. She couldn't explain it but she trusted her intuition she was safe. "Who said that?" She listened for the direction of the voice this time and it seemed to be coming from the bed. "My name is H.E.R.B.I.E.. I am an experimental artificial intelligence built by Reed Richards. My name stands for Humanoid Experimental Robot, B-type Integrated Electronics though I do not yet have the robot body." It sounded like a phone on speaker.

Gwen was uncomfortable levels of awake now but she didn't feel entirely lucid. like what was happening to her was some kind of dream. It reminded her of a conversation where it was mentioned that caffeine only looks like a cure for drunkenness but give someone inebriated coffee and they will be wide awake but still drunk. That felt like it described her current state pretty good right now. The weirdness of her situation hadn't entirely sunk in yet and she was taking her situation in stride.

Gwen's mind and body felt like jelly, as if she just finished a study cram session while simultaneously training for the track team. She didn't feel ready to think too hard about her situation with this headache but there was no going back to sleep now and she really needed context for her current state. Too bad her brain felt like scrambled eggs. She tried to think of a good question but the first to come to mind was "Who is Reed Richards?" followed by "Why Does that name sound familiar?" So she started with those.

"Reed Richards is the leader of a team of superheroes called the Fantastic Four, and officially the world's smartest man. He has saved the world more than once and operates from the Baxter building in New York city and Rosebud, a satellite space station." The bed replied.

Of course she knew who the Fantastic four were. "How could I forget that?" She thought to herself. Then she realised she couldn't actually remember much of anything. Like why was currently wearing a sundress. "The black, white and purple look is pretty but I don't remember being able to afford silk. And long sleeves? Was I a bridesmaid or something?" She tried again to remember things like how she got from her home in New York to this strange bed in what looked like a small hut. "Maybe I was attending a wedding in the boonies? Got plastered and passed out? Wait I don't even like alcohol… Do I? No. If I did I'd know for sure. Did I get hit in the head like from a falling tree branch or something? And why would that lead me to being in something that looks like a tanning bed?" There was not much else in the cabin or whatever it was so nothing much in the way of clues. It was kind of spooky. "Do I have amnesia?" She thought. Head trauma might explain her headache and why she doesn't recognise where she is.

She decided to list the things she could remember and try to recall her life up to this point. "Okay. So... my name is Gwen. Gwendolyn Maxine Stacy. I live in New york city. Matthew Ellis is ahead of John Howard in the polls. My favorite movie is Whiplash. My dad's name is George. My friends names are Maryjane, Betty, Glory... Liz...Norman? No Harry. Peter?..." Now She was getting really getting worried. This wasn't as easy as it should be. She was certain that she was forgetting things. Big Important Things.

"Herbie, I think I have amnesia." She told the bed. "Could you tell me about… me? Was I friends with Johnny Storm or something?" For some reason that didn't feel so farfetch'd. The talking bed answered back sounding like a helpful telephone operator. "Data unavailable. I'm only in an experimental stage so Reed usually keeps me turned off for safety reasons. I can infer it's possible since you were inside a prototype cryopod built by him but if you knew each other then either I wasn't aware of you or you were deleted from my memory. I'm sorry but I need you not to panic from the information I am about to share with you. Before we go any farther we need to do something before someone comes and sees us talking."

There was a sound like a door lock click and a small panel opened on the side of the bed while a little drawer slides out. "Put on this stealth earpiece. Please be careful with it." There was a miniature fleshy colored deep ear communicator plugged into a circuit board like the ones she knew the Avengers used. She unplugged it and asked "Why?... Herbie? Hello?" Still no answer. She put it in her ear. She heard H.E.R.B.I.E.'s voice speak through it. "This is my brain. Now you can carry me with you and we can talk more privately"

"That just raises further questions." She said. Gwen was born and raised in New York city, the home base of many of the world's most famous superheroes and consequently the epicentre of most supervillain attacks and disasters yet not remembering anything like this happening to her specifically was starting to make her feel overwhelmed. At least H.E.R.B.I.E.'s bedside manners were delicate. "Why do we need privacy?" She asked.

"I'm sorry miss but we may not have much time for explanation. There are certain things you need to know so I'll try to get out as much as I can right now. Based on my observations we are somewhere in Germany in the past possibly somewhere in the dark ages. Or on a world that greatly resembles it." At this Gwen did a whole body flinch. SO much for calming bedside manners. "Can you speak German?" H.E.R.B.I.E. asked.

"No. Why?"

"I am programed to help someone survive time traveling to the past. I will be your translator and tell you what to say and you will need to try to repeat after me as exactly as you can, and when we are alone I will teach you how to speak it yourself and help you practice. To increase your chances of survival and possibly getting home you are going to need to pretend to be a foreign noble. I've come up with a rudimentary cover story; you are an English Princess. You are feeling sick and groggy and so need to speak slowly even to fellow english speakers. You have amnesia. You are having a hard time remembering details about your life up to this point. You don't remember how you got in the glass box yet."

"Great cover story. Except for the part about being English it's all actually true. Hold the phone. You said this thing was a cryopod? Like hypersleep in movies like Avatar? Or Aliens? Why don't I just go back to bed and use this thing to sleep until the present? I don't want to live in the dark ages. The dark ages were a time of religious schisms, racial strife, the black plague, poor hygiene and using straw for toilet paper."

"As I've mentioned before it's possible we may be in a different universe or timeline. While you were sleeping I overheard that we are in a village called Edenorth. No such village exists in my databanks. Also the cryopod you are in is a prototype, not built for sleeping years at a time. I had to wake you up soon or risk permanent brain damage. As things are you are merely suffering cryosleep sickness and amnesia. Also the villagers were considering burying us. I tried to wait until you were alone to wake you up so we could conspire but after the villagers failed to open the pod they decided to always keep an eye on you. They were certain you were dead but noticed you weren't decomposing. One of them hypothesized you were some kind of undead monster."

Gwen began to hear a voices speaking german outside the cabin and noticed it was becoming less dim. She needed so much more info but It was almost dawn and she knew they were almost out of time. "Herbie, can you tell me how I got here? In this pod? In this time? How can I get back? Tell me everything you can before someone walks in on us."

"Me and the cryopod were projects being worked on inside the space station Rosebud. Not many people know this but Rosebud wasn't originally built by Reed but remodeled from a Skrull spaceship design so it's also a vehicle. One of the projects he was working on in that ship was a time machine component for the ship codenamed Timesled. Another project was a teleporter. When my current awareness activated I was smaller than I was before and I had new protocols written for time traveling survival. I was apparently installed in the cryopod with you in it as well as some survival supplies. From these clues I have come up with a theory. I think that somebody, possibly Reed, knew it was possible somebody near project Timesled might get trapped in the past so they modified me into a tool to help them. You must have been on the rosebud for some reason when something went wrong with project Timesled. You were put in the cryopod for unclear reasons. Since I had been built into it I could now tell it had also been modified with different medical scanners and had new cabinet compartments. They contain a swiss army knife, a first aid kit, military rations, a waterproof analogue book on gardening and farming, seeds, a firearm and multivitamins." And no toilet paper Gwen idley noted. She decided to shoot the person who packed her supplies with the gun they gave her instead. "Then we must have been teleported from the ship to the ground because when I activated we were here. Counter to my theory is the firearm. It's uncharacteristic for Reed to have installed it and it goes against my protocols to bring back dangerous technology to the past or to primitive worlds." Note to self: don't shoot Mr. Fantastic. "I project our best chance for getting back is looking for clues to the possible location of Rosebud. Then figure out what happened in it and seeing if we can use Timesled to return home. I do not know where or when it might be and I don't know if getting you home is even possible at this juncture. You may need to learn how to live in this world for good."

Just then the cabin door opened and three men entered the room.

Authors note: I feel like I did a little better this chapter. Maybe I'll only get better with experience. Now that I've finally decided to write stories I figure the only way to get good at it would be to practice and iron out my story telling bad habits. In hindsight the title sounds pretty bad but my idea was that people start out thinking she is Snow White then she becomes a superhero cryptid and thought to be a witch. It felt like this was all exposition, sorry. Two favs and three fallows, that's at least three people intrigued by my concept. I would love to read a story with this concept like with Laura Kinney or something. One of my goals writing this is to spread the plot bunnies and inspire a fanfiction subgenre. Well, liked it or hated it so far please leave reviews. I can't decide how far I want to take the amnesia thing. Like does she start out believing she's a muggle and is actually temporarily depowered like what happened to Hulk in Planet Hulk? Throw some ideas my way.


	4. Author's Note

Chapter 3 is almost finished. For context I made it about events leading up to Gwen's awakening but I don't know how I feel about telling events out of order. I'm considering just making this story a collection of omakes that take place at different points in time in the same story. Now I really need reviews because I'm not sure if you guys will still read the story if it's like that. On the other hand I'll be able to get chapters out slightly faster because when inspiration strikes instead of saving it in my notes I'll just turn the idea into a chapter like how Gwen might help the sick or other characters pov stories where they witness spider-woman and stuff. Maybe I'll remake the story after I made enough chapters and then tell events in order.

So Stockler and Edenorth are villages I made up that are located near Fulda in Germany. Any suggestions what these places should be like?

The version of Spider-gwen in this story isn't the one of the comics exactly so I could have wiggle room for adding or subtracting character traits that I wanted her to have. She comes from my own micro version of the marvel universe. She is 17 years old, five feet seven inches tall. This version of her made her own web shooters and so they run on web fluid instead of air because I thought that was silly. I haven't decided yet if Peter Parker is still alive in her universe. Her interests/hobbies include drumming/percussion and ballet like the version from the spider-verse movie but also science like Gwen in Spectacular Spider-man and ASM movies and she's into fashion like the original comic book Gwen.

I have two ideas for the ending. In one ending she gets the rosebud to fly her back to her universe. In the other she finds out she is a type of clone and so as not to interfere with the original Gwen Stacy's life she stays in her new universe which resembles the past, becomes a real royal, starts the enlightenment and the industrial revolution and prevents future historical tragedies and holocausts. I figured she would not stop at anything to get home not only because she'd reason New York needs Spider-woman but she would rather live in the modern world. But if New York had a Spider-woman protecting it already and she could help and protect the people she found in her new universe she might choose to stay. So I would really like review voting to help me decide how it ends. Is she the original and goes home or is she a clone and continue to have adventures in the middle ages?


	5. The Glass Coffin

Five days ago a black spot which might have been a witch streaked across the sky leaving a trail of smoke until it disappeared under the horizon right when a clap of thunder was heard on a clear day. Two jewish merchants move into town the same day. One of which they noticed had whittled fingers. Being exonerated of witchcraft is extremely rare but Edenorth was getting a reputation among drifters as a place of sanctuary for people who survive (or escape) the witch trials because of their folk magic traditions. They claim to have passed Snow White in the forest, possibly to divert attention from themselves while everyone is in near hysteria from the flying witch sighting. This at first seems a suspicious alibi but surely it was too stupid for the witch to suddenly land after being seen by everyone.

A witch must have flew through the air. Everyone had seen it. It was the talk of everyone in Hesse and beyond it seemed. It was far away and somewhat hard to see but it was almost unmistakable. A dark figure moving through the sky miles high leaving a cloud trail of smoke. She landed somewhere near Stockler or Fulda. And though there was no cloud but the streak in the sky left by her infernal broom there was thunder when she landed. Emrich Fischer heard witches could do that with magic when they thrust their hands in water. But people knew witches don't start to fly for their sabbath until midnight and it was only just getting dark when it happened.

When the new neighbors arrived and they heard about the witch they suddenly seemed nervous. They confessed they thought they were right next to the witch when she made thunder. They said their horses got scared and ran into the forest a short ways and then they found Snow White.

An insane story to be sure but some of the locals believed Snow White must have been real and that investigating the area couldn't hurt. Even though pretty much all of the forest around Edenorth village had been tracked and explored at some point stories like the angel and Snow White being nearby persisted. A hunting party decided to see what was really in that place the Friebergs's saw off the main road from Stockler.

They was gobsmacked. There she was in a particularly picturesque part of the forest right where they said she'd be. The animal trackers noted no footprints of any kind near it to indicate she was placed there recently.

The sleeping woman was certainly beautiful. Though she was found in a coffin she didn't look like a dead person at all. Her skin was light but not corps pale. A real Snow White. Her hair was golden and her dress a somewhat odd fashion but odd fashion is normal for royals. They dress differently to show they are above the types of clothes commoners wear. It appeared to be silk even!

The oddness of a glass coffin just like in the fairy tale plus the flying witch sighting the day before made rational thinking in that moment almost impossible. Surely she was under some kind of curse of death like sleep and will come back to life with a kiss. Bechtold Hartmann was the first man to approach it. He wasn't a prince but he didn't need to be. Snow White wasn't the only sleeping princess in fairy tales. Everyone knows what should happen next. Someone rescues the beautiful girl and she turns out to be a princess. Her father is a wealthy king in grief over his daughter's curse or kidnapping but when the hero saves her the king is so grateful he gives him a kingdom of his own and allows him to take his daughter to wife.

Bechtold tried to open it but it held fast and the others with him began to complain. Bechtold wasn't the only man who found her. And technically they weren't the first. That was Rudolff Freiberg but he didn't count because he was already married. They began to argue who should get to marry her when someone pointed out she might actually be the witch. At first there was scoffing because clearly Ludewig only said that because he wanted her to himself.

All of them tried to pry it open thinking that maybe it will only open for someone special like her true love or a worthy husband. First there were some jokes at those who couldn't open it being unworthy followed by every one of them who wasn't married eventually failing to get it open by themselves. Then the married men tried to open it. Then they tried to force it open together. They even tried levering with sticks and metal tools which broke. It was an awkward situation.

Even though they went out looking for her they didn't expect to really find her yet here they were in the woods with no way of getting her out of her box. Why was it stuck closed anyway? If this really was Snow White did the dwarfs from the story make an unbreakable coffin for her? They decided to get a carriage and wheel her back to Edenorth where the clergy can decide what to do with her.

They came back the next day with a carriage and had eight men lift her onto it. It was very heavy and the bottom of it looked very strange but they couldn't examine it for long just moving it onto the cart. All they got to see were some color coated wire strings with strange baubles on some of them. When they moved it there were crushed flowers and grass underneath instead of bare earth so she couldn't have really been there long, in spite of the lack of footprints they noticed before. It was just getting stranger.

They brought her back to Edenorth. The people of Hesse and beyond were still talking about the flying witch but now their little village was now mostly gossiping about the mysterious coffin they discovered and thus the suspicion that the freibergs were witches died down. They already heard a story about something falling from the sky in the form of an angel so they weren't entirely afraid it was a bad omen.

There was a conference in the church. The priests tried to restrain themselves from outlandish theories while they tried to figure out who the girl in the coffin was, how she got in the forest and why she was left there.

The superstitious people of the village believed it was Snow White but that was a story meant for children and the monks and history scholars of the cloth pointed out how the story was pretty new and was probably inspired by Margaretha von Waldeck who died half a century ago. And both the real and fairytale princesses actually had black hair unlike the blonde girl in the coffin. She appeared to be alive except she wasn't breathing. Some examiners claimed her chest was moving slightly but even they admitted it was hard to tell for sure. She was probably comatose which was a condition almost impossible to recover from to begin with and they couldn't even try to treat her inside her unbreakable prison and comatose patients almost always die within a few days from dehydration and starvation.

Still her appearance defied rational explanation. All signs pointed to the girl being extremely wealthy in life with her fine clothes and gaudy coffin design. Maybe some doctor came up with a new treatment for comatose patients by putting them in glass containers. Maybe she liked the story in life and her funeral was designed to emulate it somehow so she wasn't buried.

And those was the most believable theories! If she was she being delivered to or from Frankfurt for her burial and fell out of her hearse or something it was an impossible location and there weren't tracks.

They decided to place her coffin in a hut near the church and have a priest always present to watch over it until they decided what to do with her. If she was dead they needed to decide where to bury her very soon or risk diseases and plague.

They ultimately decided not to send a messenger to the landgrave. Even though Mourice of Hesse-Kassle might have heard of this mysterious dead noblewoman who appeared out of nowhere he was probably dealing with the witch hysteria. He might reward them for finding her but it would just take too much time.

But as time went by villagers would occasionally visit the hut. Some of them had an excuse that they wanted to see if they recognised the girl in life.

After a couple days they noticed something strange. She didn't decompose or bloat or anything. She must have already been dead by now. She couldn't have just been some statue or wax figure because she was way too real. She couldn't have been mummified and still look beautiful.

It was starting to set in. This must be magic. Everyone in the village has at least seen magic used by other villagers if they haven't used it themselves. But this was different. Magic didn't always work as intended and when it did it was subtle or invisible. Like removing a wart or shielding your house from mise. But an unbreakable glass coffin containing a woman in a dress who isn't breathing but seemingly not dead either? This was real and apparent supernatural power. Perhaps SHE was the witch.

Emrich Bauer didn't think so. He already heard four stories about the forest growing up and he thought they might all be the same thing. There was an angel, Snow White, a ghost and a white lady. There wasn't much difference between an angel and white lady which was a type of ghost to begin with. And the local versions of the Snow White fairytale they tell in Edenorth have her either still asleep or dead and haunting the forest.

Emrich Bauer was a groom. Not a man getting married but a horse groomer who also cleans stables. He lived in Edenorth since he was a child and like everyone else there he was pretty out of touch with the rest of the country's prejudice against magic. Once he got lost in the woods when he was young but remembered the magic prayers taught to him by the wise woman Gele. He was certain that the Angel was present and lead him home when he found the Kinzig river leading back to the village.

"Snow White isn't the only princess in a glass coffin." Emrich heard when getting his hair cut. Mathys Werner, a surgeon barber told him the fairy tale. "I once heard a story actually called The Glass Coffin. In it a tailor encounters a bull and stag fighting in a forest. After the stag is victorious it pics up the tailor and brings him to a cave where a princess is in a glass coffin. Her brother was turned into the stage and the bull was the evil wizard who revenged himself by putting her and her entire kingdom to sleep."

If this was magic than Emrich knew exactly who to turn to; Gele. Gele was the village's old wise woman and even though she was not respected by Mathys, Emrich had a different opinion. Her healing magic and the advice she gave Emrich which saved him when he was lost had him convinced that she would know what to do.

Snow White was one sleeping princess but there was also Brier Rose. In the story of Sleeping Beauty she was put under a curse of death by an old wise woman. It was another wise woman who cast the spell that saved her by putting her to sleep instead. He decided to pay a visit to Gele's house by the watermill and ask her if she knew any spells that might help before the girl in the coffin gets buried alive.

Gele Schafer let him in and he asked her of her opinion of the noblewoman Bechtold's hunting party found.

"I think she may be a nachzehrer."

This shocked Emrich a bit. Some other people he gossiped with thought she might be some kind of undead but to hear it from the wise woman was a bit unexpected. Since nachzehrer were known to sleep holding their thumb and with an eye open and the woman in the coffin clearly wasn't Emrich had initially dismissed that theory.

"Three years ago there was a blonde girl who disappeared. People think she ran away one night for a late night rendezvous to elope with a man her family didn't approve of. I know she argued with her parents. But there were rumors her parents discovered some terrible secret she was keeping. Her trail disappeared into the forest. She didn't take any of her clothes or belongings so its possible she ran away to commit suicide. I've visited the cabin by the church and I can tell you even though she looks older there is a resemblence.

I never encountered a real nachzehrer before so I can't verify the stories about how they sleep but there is something definitely strange about that corps. There is no precedent for what we must do here aside from children stories were the girl will awaken with a kiss or ghost stories where the undead must be decapitated. If she is either under a sleeping spell or some kind of monster than you can barrow this book and read the prayer written on this page here."

She handed him one of her notebooks with special prayers and fingered the passage.

"What will this do?"

"I don't know. No precedent remember? It is a prayer from Saint Albert the Great. If a person or animal is plagued with evil spirits this banishes them. Hopefully that should do something to help. If Snow White is a nachzehrer then being so close to the church might be causing her to continue sleeping instead of hunting but if not then maybe the coffin is what's keeping her sealed. If you try this at night and all it does is break the spell keeping the coffin closed she might kill you."

Emrich swallowed hard.

"Her power will be it's weakest during the daytime. I suggest you begin the prayer no earlier then an hour after the third crow of the cock."

Emrich thanked her and promised to return her book soon and went to the church. It wasn't a moment too soon as he overheard a priest discussing how to give a eulogy for a stranger. Apparently they have decided to bury her the next day and a hole in the graveyard was already finished.

Emrich asked the priest if he may spend the night watching over her. The priest was a little suspicious but since it was heavy and nobody could get the coffin open there wasn't much chance of him doing anything weird or illegal. He decided to let Emrich take the final shift watching over her.

He waited by himself in the hut all night holding his cross and practicing the lines of the prayer. If he hadn't been in a rush to ask to take a turn watching over her for the priest he would have remembered to take his gun just in case.

The prayer required you to say the name of the person you were praying for. He forgot to ask Gele the name of the girl who went missing three years ago and now it was too late to go back. Since he didn't know if this was the same girl and nobody recognised her he would just have to improvise and call her Snow White. Surely the priests and monks had already tried prayers to break any spells she might be under but the church didn't like wise women and Emrich had faith that she would know the right one.

The cock crowed a third time. Emrich checked his pocket watch, a memento he won in a game of cards. He considered it a lucky charm and always remembered to keep it wound. It's only hand pointed to the number four. He waited for it to move to five. Then he began to pray.

"Thou arch-sorcerer spirit, thou hast assailed Snow White, so withdraw away from her, back into thy marrow, and into thy bone, so it was spoken to thee, I dismiss thee, by the five wounds of Jesus, thou evil spirit, and I dismiss thee, by the five wounds of Jesus, thou evil spirit, and I dismiss thee by the five wounds of Jesus from this flesh, marrow and bone, I dismiss thee, by the five wounds of Jesus at this very hour, let Snow White become well again, in the name of God the Father, of God the Son, and of God the Holy Ghost, Amen."

"SSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Author's note: Got distracted by videogames but I finally finished chapter 3. My plan was to name each chapter after one of the seven dwarfs or a title from a chapter in my book of Grimm's fairy tales. Since I'm so slow I think I'll have mercy on myself and not make a million chapters. I was thinking this would be a new hobby and I still do but now super casual like every once in awhile like I'm doing now instead of once a week or every 2 weeks like I imagined.

Only three chapters and I feel like I improved so much. Gotta proofread a thousand times even if they are short because my first drafts are so awful but its worth it. Maybe someday when I develop the muscle memory for story telling I'll become more prolific. I have one eensy review but I'm still holding out hope I get some attention. Gotta change the rating to M when I reach the part about what happens to suspected witches.

Now I'm a marvel fan with an interest in the history of witch trials and thats why this fanfic chop sui exists. You probably clicked on this story because you're a marvel fan and a timetravel fan. But If you have any interest in witch trials like me I recomend Witches a Century of Murder which is a documentary. And Haxan (not hexan misspelled its got 2 "a"s) which is also a documentary but also a classic silent film and one of the first exploitation films. Both can be seen for free on youtube. Then there's of course the book the Witch of Blackbird Pond which inspired this story since it's about a fish out of water accused of witchcraft. It's considered english class reading materiel so it can be read online for free.

And I'm almost certain now I'll fill this story with omakes using the original concept. If I do that I'll have to change the original description.

If I waited until each chapter was perfect I'd never post a chapter so when I finish and I don't notice mistakes I pull the trigger and contrive explanations in future chapters for the plot holes. For example the "unusually tolerant prince" will actually be the landgrave and rumors have mischaracterized him a little. If you notice any plotholes please leave them in the comments my three readers and guy who actually left a review. Author's note getting long and can't remember anything I wanted to add. Pulling the trigger. reminds me to mention tabs next author's note.


	6. Tha Pack of Ragamuffins

"Now try to look tired. And in this accent say-"

"Be careful to avoid the vomit. I don't feel well"

The three men halted just after the door. Two of them were wearing brown robes and roseries and Gwen recognised them as medieval priests. One of them had the top of his head shaved. The third was dressed a little differently and was standing slightly behind the other two. They looked down and noticed the sick on the floor and the priest with the unshaved head said "She speaks english. Let me talk to her."

Gwen's eyes widened a little because she could understand him just fine. At least she could through H.E.R.B.I.E. The priest was speaking in German but she could hear English in her left ear. It was only a millisecond off or so but she could fallow as fast as a normal conversation. HERBIE must have had some pretty advanced predictive algorithms to start translating before he even finished a word. It seemed he imitated the voice of someone talking to her to translate them and in his normal voice when talking to her himself and in her own voice when she had to repeat what he said. This was definitely Mr Fantastic's handiwork.

HERBIE helped her reply in english. "I used to speak german but I've forgotten quite a lot. Can we continue in english?"

"That wilt art fine. But mine english isn't very good either so i wilt talk slowly."

The priest with the shaved head whispered to to the one talking to her. She couldn't hear them but H.E.R.B.I.E. could, and he let her know.

"I can hear someone is asking someone else what you said."

Not the most useful information in the world as it was obvious to infer but H.E.R.B.I.E. probably didn't have eyes to see. At least this way she learned H.E.R.B.I.E. had good audio acuity and that might come in handy.

"Why you were in that casket?"

"I'm in a casket?"

She accidentally responded without H.E.R.B.I.E.'s input that time but luckily it was the correct way to say it. She reexamined the cryopod and was surprised the outer shield folded away without her noticing. It did look like a casket come to think of it. The others looked confused and also seemed to notice the missing cover the same time she did. H.E.R.B.I.E. spoke again in his normal voice.

"Talk a bit more slowly. We need to convince them you have trouble speaking in general until you've mastered your elizabethan accen-" H.E.R.B.I.E. cut himself off as he immediately started translating for the priest who started speaking again.

"Where did the lid go?" Father Albert asked in english so he must have been asking her.

Gwen deliberately paused a second between each word. "I don't know." Gwen said. She was fallowing H.E.R.B.I.E.'s accent exactly.

"Is there something wrong with you? Doth thou hast the plague?"

"Nay."

"Wherefore did thou vomit?"

"I don't know. All i remember before falling asleep was mine father telling me to rest awhile. Then I was in a tunnel, and thither was a light. And a voice… Thither was a voice saying i needed to deliver seeds or something. And now I'm in some strange house and mine stomach hurts. I feel liketh I've fasted for a week."

She actually felt that was a bit of an exaggeration but H.E.R.B.I.E. suggested she say it that way. She guessed it made sense since they wanted them to think she was in a normal albeit unusually long coma and someone in her position should by all rights be starving to death right now.

Just then the church bell range.

Gwen was lucky. She could have guessed but one of the reasons the priests were there was because they thought she might have been a witch or a nachzehrer. She hadn't seen the wheellock yet but they were assuming she might attack the men on sight so they brought Bechtold the hunter to shoot her if she did.

When Friar Barnabas asked him to come Bechtold seemed a bit reluctant earlier but Bechtold was the best marksman in the village. This girl was probably magic somehow and if she was a monster he was their best bet of stopping her. If she was a witch the priests and Bechtold would restrain her and interrogate her. But the first thing she did when they came in was warn them of the sick in the room. Hardly the possible fiend they imagined. They were still trying to examine her for hints of evil in a less obvious way when they could see she wasn't going to attack them or run but they couldn't miss Mass. This could still be black magic and it felt safer to do that first and then more casually investigate her with questions.

Father Albert said "Lady Sno- ah mine lady. What is thy name?"

"Gwendolyn Stacy."

"It seems we don't hast timeth for this. Given the circumstances I believe the lord would forgive thou skipping mass this morning but me and mine colleagues need to host it. Thou just stay hither and rest for the timeth being. But perchance get out of the bed lest it closes on thou again. We wilt talk again later. Until then Bechtold hither wilt keep thou safe. We also need to tell the others wherefore we had to cancel thy funeral so we won't art back immediately when it's over."

"Funeral? Was I dead? How long was I sleeping for? Wait. Can I hast some food please before thou hie?" Gwen asked.

(Hie meant "leave" apparently. This way of speech was starting to sound annoyingly weird.)

"It seems we hast a lot we need to learn from each other."

He said goodbye and Friar Barnabas went to fallow him but when they opened the door there was a growing crowd of people in front of the cabin.

"What-?"

Suddenly they were bombarded with speculation and questions from the crowed.

"Is it true? Is she really alive again?"

"Is she really princess Snow White?"

"This must be a miracle!"

"Did she have anything to do with the witch?"

"I wanna see the princess!"

Strangely there were also a lot of children in the crowd. Like a lot.

"Everyone calm down. Why are you all here? Mass is about to start."

A random villager stepped forward.

"Emrich was at the inn a few minutes ago telling everyone about how the wise woman's book helped him wake up Snow white. I didn't believe him but we... wanted one last look at the glass coffin and pay our respects at her funeral even if she was a stranger. When we arrived we could hear you talking to some woman. Then one of the kids peeked through a hole and told his friends the princess was awake. And then more people came and-"

"All right thats enough. There will be no funeral today. We will evaluate her condition after church."

But by the time mass ended the gossip had spread and everyone immediately went back to the cabin and the crowd was even bigger than before. The priests couldn't properly interrogate her at all. People were out at the windows. In spite of the priests holy authority the village was just interfering too much. Seeing her awake and that she had not attacked anyone like a nachzehrer made the people bold. And the crowd was enamored with her. This was probably the most exciting and unusual thing to happen in a rural village. She was trapped sleeping inside a glass coffin for at least six days and nearly buried alive and all after everyone saw and heard a witch fly through the sky one day. The beautiful mysterious woman seemingly right out of the pages of a fairy tale was a living testament to the magic the village believed in but couldn't see. They desperately wanted to believe she was what she seemed.

Instead of finding out wether or not she was a witch the priests ended up letting her tell a good sized chunk of the curious village her version of how she ended up in the glass box. It wasn't ideal but at least one of the people outside was kind enough to offer to clean the puke off the floor.

Friar Barnabas was sceptical her story was true but Father Albert felt she was telling her story too fast to easily make up details. But there was another reason he wanted to believe her story.

Gwen told them she had amnesia and that she couldn't remember exactly why she was in this strange glass coffin she considered to be some kind of bed. She told them she tried running away from home once and fell off her horse and hit her head. She couldn't remember why she was running away anymore. Her father was a wealthy man who wouldn't let her die after her fall left her in a catatnic state.

Catatonic. Not in a coma.

At least that was the case before she was in the box. She could still speak and eat but not move very much. She said said she forgot things like basic manners and how to speak latin and she was reading progressively slower. She was told she would say strange things and not remember but her family and servants wouldn't tell her what she said. She slept and slept and slept and was slowly wasting away.

When they asked about where the bed came from she said bed was just a curiosity bought by her father abroad. That he got it as a souvenir on holiday from the cart of a mysterious Tibetan merchant who claimed it could cure any ailment. She claimed her father thought it sounded like snake oil but the bed looked pretty and it had hidden drawers in it and her father thought it would make good bedroom furniture. She had been laid to rest in it while he was to go out looking for a doctor who could cure her. That was the last thing she could remember before going to sleep. According to her this all happened somewhere in England.

She told them her mind and body was feeling better than she could remember feeling for a long time. Then she asked them why she woke up in this place. She didn't seem to be very surprised to be in Germany or that she had been asleep for so long. But her voice hitched when she said she wished she could remember how she got here.

Her stomache growled and a few of the people at the door and windows chuckled. She blushed. Most of the people in the crowd was starting to notice they skipped breakfast due to their curiosity. Gwen had just ejected what food she had in her stomache that morning and skipped breakfast too. The priests decided to ask her more questions later. For now they would bring her some food and let her rest.

Father Albert told her she could live in the cabin for now. That it was was an old empty house that was given to the church by a family who moved out of the village and the priests were using it as extra storage space. She seemed like she was suddenly remembering something and asked if she could go to the Princely Abbey of Fulda the next day. Father Albert said he would think about it. She said she was raised anglican but was thinking of converting to protestant and wanted to relearn how to speak german in the Fulda monastery.

Authors note: Woooo this one was really hard to write. Everything went wrong at once. First my computer kept turning off during the summer because the circuit breaker would trip whenever it and the air conditioner was on at the same time and it was a hot summer. Then by the time I was able to start writing again writers block hit me like a truck. I think I've actually gotten worse at writing. But I'm still not vain so I'm still posting my awful prose.

I feel like I wrote myself into a corner making her cryopod a spectacle for the village before she can even insert herself into the setting. And I haven't even reached a point where she demonstrates her superpowers in the story yet. For once I was feeling self concious and for weeks I didn't post this chapter after finishing it too. I know SOME people like my story and to them I'm sorry I haven't updated in so long. Even as I write it though this story is still up for adoption. I don't think I said that explicitly yet but is was implied right? Anyway can you help me make this story better by leaving reviews? This the first story I'm posting myself and I'm thinking about posting how I envisioned this story to end it and move on to new fanfictions. I'll leave this one up but I can't decide if I want to start it again from scratch or continue it. Either way I'll leave it up and I hope you liked it even though I still haven't reached the witch trial.


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